Larry Shenk, Vice President of Alumni Relations, shares his notes, quotes and anecdotes from the world of baseball.

Offensive Valleys

Ups and downs, peaks and valleys.

That’s part of a marathon called a baseball season. Pat Burrell and Chase Utley came out of the shoot swinging a hot bat last month. Jimmy Rollins went down. Ryan Howard started slowly as did some other players.

Burrell and Utley have cooled off, Rollins came back and is hot, Howard is getting warmer and Jayson Werth had a career game on Friday. Pedro Feliz. Carlos Ruiz and Geoff Jenkins haven’t gotten it going offensively and Shane Victorino missed time. Chris Coste has been swinign a hot bat lately.

As the Phillies begin a seven-game road trip, will the all the bats get hot at one time? Pat and Chase will get it going again. Rollins had 12 hits in the just-concluded 6-game homestand. So, he’s hot, real hot. Howard showed signs of coming out of it. Others will get it coing.

Over the course of a season, players are going to have extremes at times. But, it is a matter of working hard and battling. Offensive valleys are part of the game and its’ long season. The best hitters fail seven out of 10 times..

Williamsport JourneyPlayed the role of a deliveryman today with a car trunk full of Phillies memorabilia, including a 4-foot tall Phillie Phanatic. Sorry, the stuffed green doll was in the trunk. Didn’t want it sitting in the car and having nosey people gawking.

Destination was the Peter J. McGovern Little League Baseball Museum in South Williamsport. The museum will be setting up a Phillies display on the lower level of the two-level building. The display will run from June 2 through the end of the baseball season.

We’ll have more about this later in the season. For more information about the museum, visit the website at museum@LittleLeague.org. Over 35,000 annually stop in the museum located on the grounds of the Little League headquarters and park where the LL World Series is played every August.

Answering a questionWith the double rain delays yesterday, what happened to the Phillies transportation plans? Benefit of traveling on a charter (airplane or train) is that it waits for the team. Taking commercial transportation would create tons of problems on days such as yesterday. It would be a nightmare for Frank Coppenbarger, who has enough gray hair.

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